Consciousness: The Final Frontier By Christian de Quincey

If there is a final frontier for science, the exploration of consciousness will surely take us there. But it will be an interdisciplinary effort. Because of the special kinds of problems encountered in studying consciousness, we will need to approach it from a variety of perspectives. And if there is a single volume to serve as a launching pad for this new interdisciplinary enterprise, Toward a Science of Consciousness: The First Tucson Discussions and Debates stands out. With more than 50 essays by leading lights in philosophy of mind, cognitive science, neurobiology, quantum theory, self-organizing hierarchies, phenomenology, and altered states, it is the most comprehensive text on consciousness studies to date. Any serious student of consciousness will want this landmark introduction.

Like the conference which gave birth to it, co-sponsored by the University of Arizona and the Institute of Noetic Sciences, the Tucson book raises two crucial issues which challenge anyone searching for a true science of consciousness: (1) What kind of reality are we dealing with where consciousness and matter can coexist? (2) How can we adequately investigate the subjective half of this reality? The first question is an issue of ontology (what is the fundamental nature of the world?), the second of epistemology (how can we come to know such a world?).

Having mastered knowledge of much of the physical world in a span of less than 500 years, science is finally coming around to the hardest problem of all: How is it that there is something like subjectivity in a world of physical objects? How is it that some matter (for example, your brain) happens to have a point of view, or at least is intimately involved with a viewpoint? It could have been otherwise: If the basic, raw "stuff" of the universe is matter or physical energy, there is no necessity that anything like minds or consciousness should ever accompany physical events no matter how complex they might become.

Yet here we are! Thinking, feeling, embodied beings, each of us with our own unique point of view. That fact is the great challenge facing any science of consciousness, and the challenge is at least twofold: metaphysical and methodological.

Four Versions of Reality

First challenge: Science must confront its underlying metaphysical assumption of the primacy and universality of matter and physical laws. Here, philosophers can help scientists sort out the metaphysical tangles. What are the implications for a science of consciousness if, for example, the ultimate nature of reality is founded on one of the following: materialism, dualism, idealism or panpsychism? Which ontology is most adequate to the task of developing a science of consciousness?

Materialism: If (as is currently the case) science is anchored in materialism, the problem is to explain how "something" which has no mass, occupies no space and has subjectivity could ever evolve or emerge from something that was massive, spatial, and wholly objective to begin with. To achieve this feat of getting mind from matter, subjectivity from objectivity would require a miracle (the kind of miracle leading philosopher of mind Colin McGinn meant by "turning the water of the physical brain into the wine of consciousness").

Dualism: If, however, this "emergence problem" of materialism tempts us to switch to dualism, we would face an equally daunting problem. Dualists claim that consciousness exists independently and separately from matter that it is a completely different kind of "stuff." But if this were the case, we would be left with the unyielding problem of explaining how two mutually alien substances could ever interact. This, of course, was Descartes' problem, and one that has never been solved. Dualism, too, requires the intervention of a miracle.

Idealism: A third option, idealism, is usually, though infrequently, invoked to overcome the deep problems with materialism and dualism. Here, the beginning assumption flips materialism upside down and claims that consciousness is primary and universal, and that matter is either (a) merely an illusion (the maya hypothesis) or (b) an emanation from spirit. However, though less problematic philosophically, maya-idealism nevertheless poses a major problem pragmatically. We just wouldn't survive very long in the world if we treated all material objects (such as cars on the highway, or poisonous substances) as unreal "dream stuff." Interacting with material bodies produces very significant consequences. On the other hand, emanationist-idealism runs the risk of reducing spirit to physics: If matter emanates from spirit and is real, then ultimately spirit itself must be, at least partly, intrinsically physical in some way otherwise, it would amount to a miracle of producing something (real matter) from wholly nonphysical being. Believing in such a miracle is no more justified than believing in the materialist's miracle of producing consciousness from matter.

Panpsychism: Which leaves panpsychism. If both matter and mind are real, and are not separate substances, and neither can emerge or evolve from the other, then both matter and mind must both have always existed together, be co-extensive, co-eternal, and in some way, co-creative. Panpsychism variously called panexperientialism or radical materialism proposes that matter (or physical energy) itself is intrinsically sentient or experiential, "all the way down." Of the four ontologies, panpsychism is, ironically, both the one most often dismissed by scientists (and philosophers) and yet the one most likely to provide a coherent metaphysical foundation for a true science of consciousness.

It is interesting to note, therefore, that a number of philosophers and scientists at the Tucson conference and in this book seem compelled to entertain some variation of panpsychism. When they look deeply enough at the more profound philosophical questions concerning the relationship between consciousness and matter, between mind and brain, a growing number of investigators are opting for panpsychism or double-aspectism (where ultimate reality is considered to be intrinsically both mental and physical).

Take, for instance, the opening essay, "Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness" by philosopher David Chalmers. He proposes a double-aspect theory, where information is "truly fundamental" and is intrinsically both "phenomenal" (experiential) and "physical" (energetic). Chalmers encourages philosophers and scientists to look for fundamental psychophysical laws to explain relationships between consciousness and matter. And Stuart Hameroff, one of the organizers of the conference and chief editor of this book, concluded from his investigations of quantum microtubules that at its deepest levels nature might best be characterized by "funda-mentality." By this, Hameroff implies that mentality, like physicality, is "fundamental"—it goes all the way down.

Nevertheless, despite such openings to the possibility of panpsychism, most of the essays in this book are still informed by a presumption of materialism. Dualism, not surprisingly because of the interaction problem, is underrepresented (how can you have a science where the causal relationship between mind and matter remains miraculous?). Whereas dualism has been discredited by modern critiques, materialism has so far managed to evade a similar fate by generating a thick theoretical cloud cover which obscures the profound problems involved in the notion of mind emerging from matter. And so, even in this ground-breaking book, materialism is taken for granted by many of the authors.

Idealism gets a foothold in a section on "Phenomenology" with contributions from psychiatrist Arthur Deikman on "Intention, Self, and Spiritual Experience," from physicist Brian Josephson and musicologist Tethys Carpenter on "What Can Music Tell Us About the Nature of the Mind? A Platonic Model," and from psychologists Richard Atkinson and Heath Earl on implications of altered states of consciousness through guided meditation. The idealist position is also represented in the concluding chapter by IONS' Willis Harman, "Toward a Science of Consciousness: Addressing Two Central Questions." Harman's "two central questions" concern ontology and epistemology, capturing what this essay identifies as the two great challenges facing any true science of consciousness: (1) establishing an adequate and coherent metaphysical foundation for an exploration of the relationship between mind and brain, consciousness and matter (ontology), and (2) developing a suitable methodology for gaining knowledge of subjectivity (epistemology).

A Question of Perspective

The second challenge: Like the field of consciousness studies in general, the Tucson book represents the ongoing debate between the so-called first-person and the third-person perspectives. Here's where methodology and epistemology becomes a sharp issue for a science of consciousness.

On the one hand, those favoring the standard scientific assumption of materialism insist that the way to approach consciousness is by studying objective things such as brains, nervous systems, computer models, or quantum-level events. These are "third-person" objects; they are "its." In this camp, we find neuroscientists, cognitive scientists, and quantum theorists.

On the other hand, those who recognize that the most salient characteristic of consciousness is its subjectivity—what it feels like from within—insist that consciousness can be investigated only by including a first-person perspective. Here, the focus is on "Is" rather than "its." Representatives from this camp include phenomenologists and meditators—investigators who are willing to explore their own experience (and perhaps be transformed in the process).

What is so remarkable about the Tucson conferences, and what is so valuable about this book, is that they serve as forums where proponents of these different perspectives can come together, listen to each other, and begin the worthy task of working toward what Ken Wilber calls "an integral theory of consciousness" (Noetic Sciences Review, Winter 1996). Between its covers, the Tucson book makes room for a great variety of voices and perspectives, though it still reflects the dominant, mainstream academic interest in materialism and third-person objectivity.

The third-person perspective is well represented in sections on "Cognitive Science," "Experimental Neuroscience," "Neural Networks," "Subneural Biology," and "Quantum Theory." Any serious student of consciousness who wants to be informed about leading mainstream ideas on the biological, computer, and quantum correlates of consciousness, will be well served by the collection of papers in these sections.

A word of warning, though: The papers in this book were written for professionals, and are not always an easy read for nonspecialists. There are some notable exceptions, however, such as Dana Zohar's article on quantum consciousness. (The most off-putting part of her paper for lay readers may be its title: "Consciousness and Bose-Einstein Condensates."). Zohar joins the growing chorus of thinkers who try to get underneath the apparent mind-matter duality by proposing a double-aspect theory. At its deepest levels, she says, quantum reality is neither mental nor physical, but something else, more fundamental, which gives rise to both mind and matter. Also representing so-called Quantum Consciousness, and straddling the objectivist third-person and subjectivist first-person perspectives, physicist Fred Alan Wolf presents a somewhat technical discussion "On the Quantum Mechanics of Dreams and Emergence of Self-Awareness."

A Missing Perspective

The book's organization reflects the current state of debate within consciousness studies. Thus, most of the articles deal with third-person material correlates of consciousness, while the remainder, mainly in the section on "Phenomenology," argue for the inclusion of first-person methodologies.

However, the one conspicuous oversight in both the conferences and the book is the perspective of intersubjectivity. Beyond first-person and third-person viewpoints, a holistic science of consciousness will also have to expand to include second-person perspectives and methodologies—an approach that recognizes consciousness as a lived, creative process involving interpersonal relations and intersubjective experience.

In this view, consciousness is neither an "it" nor merely an "I"; it involves you, or some other second person. From this perspective, consciousness arises and/or is transformed when two or more subjects encounter each other and participate in some way in each other's being what existentialist theologian Martin Buber called "I-thou" relationships. It is "knowing with"—con-scientia—the original meaning of consciousness. It is the consciousness experienced, for example, when two lovers share the knowing of their love for each other.

From the second-person view, who I am—the self I experience myself to be—is shaped, or informed, by being with you. The second-person perspective, both theoretically and experientially (that is, pragmatically), is a logical and natural bridge between the apparent dichotomy of the knowing subject and the world of objects between"I" and "it," between interior "I" and exterior "other."

From this perspective it seems there is something about the nature of consciousness that requires the presence of the "other" as another subject who can acknowledge my being. When I experience myself being experienced by you, my experience of myself—and of you—is profoundly enriched and transformed.

Perhaps at the next Tucson conference (April 27-May 2, 1998) the second-person voice will also be heard, so that, along with "discussion" and "debate," the emerging science of consciousness will also include the powerful exploratory context of true intersubjective "dialogue."

Christian de Quincey teaches philosophy of consciousness at John F. Kennedy University, and is senior editor of Noetic Sciences Review.